POILTICIANS AND FARMERS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3085, 23 April 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

POILTICIANS AND FARMERS.

There has been a <jood deal of wild bilk about smaall farmers by theorists, whoso sole experience of firming , consisted in lnokinur at farms as they pnssed through them in railway carriages, lv.it tho present Premier has ridden the bobby of small farrcinir to the verge of Jnath or idiocy. Speaking at North a short time ap;o, the Hon. Mr Bnllnnce asserted th?t" an estate of 1 SO,OOO acres oui/ht to be occupied by 8,000 families ; that i.-i to say. taking the accepted average of a family nn five rouls then 180,000 acroa of New Zealand land ought to nunport 40,000 people. Tbe average holdinsr for every held of a family would te only 22J acres ! We should ju<! lilci? to pee ihu Hon. Mr linllanno or Sir Robort Stout or the Hon J.)hn MoKenzie planted on a 22.V acre section of perpetual lease land in the heart of tho New ZiKihiud bush, far removed from rondn, ami wifch no tmirket within 40 or ."iO tnilos, and wiitflli how ho would mnnasiK h> make si living out of his 2'2A acres of fore»t for himself nnil his family. Tlic Into Mr fjiUioc, M.U.R., who was nt one timi' looked upon an tlio corninpr lender of thfi p-n-ty,pub!ii-ly declared that if MrKillanoe or Sir Rohert Stoul.'or nuy of th<) other thnorists who prated so imn-h about settlement, were given (jrntis 1,000 acres of bush land, ho would not be able to mule n living out of it. Mr Lance was a man who knew what furmin^ , m'-nnt, for he had had wide experience of it, nnd we verily believe thnt in this case ho spoko merely the simple truth. It would be only serving Mr Bnllnnce riifht if he were compellel to trv,in Lie own p rson, tho experiment of living: with Iris family on a "22i acre bush section held on the perpetual-lease tenure juat for, siiy five years. We fancy that, by tho end of the five years, ho would bo a sadder and much wiser man than tho present Premier'of Now Zetland.